CHINA AND INDIA CONGRATULATES PUTIN, BUT WESTERN LEADERS DENOUNCE RESULTS AS ILLEGITIMATE
Monrovia, Liberia – President Vladimir Putin has won the just-ended election. The Russian leader was congratulated by his allies in Russia for winning the election over the weekend, but Western officials criticized the election, terming it an “illegal” poll.
With 87.8 percent of the vote, Putin won Russia’s presidential election in a record-breaking post-Soviet landslide, according to the results released on Sunday, March 18, 2024.
As a result of the decision, 71-year-old Putin will begin his fifth term as president, interspersed with a term as prime minister. He will surpass Joseph Stalin to become Russia’s longest-serving leader for nearly 200 years if he serves out his remaining six-year term.
Long before the results were expected, Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of the Security Council and a stand-in president from 2008 to 2012, posted on Telegram, congratulating Vladimir Putin on his overwhelming win.
The only person who defeated him was Charles Michel, president of the European Council, who celebrated Putin’s decisive victory shortly before the polls opened.
“China and Russia are each other’s largest neighbors and comprehensive strategic cooperative partners in the new era,” Beijing said in congratulating Putin.
Presidents Xi Jinping and Putin “will continue to maintain close exchanges, lead the two countries to continue to uphold longstanding good-neighborly friendship, and deepen comprehensive strategic coordination,” according to spokeswoman Lin Jian for the foreign ministry.
In order to strengthen their “special” connection, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his excitement about deepening diplomatic ties with Moscow.
“Look forward to collaborating in the years to come to further strengthen the tried-and-true Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership between India and Russia,”
The head of EU foreign policy, Josep Borrell, argued that neither real opposition nor foreign observers had been present, and that the election had not been “free and fair.”
“Intimidation and repression have been the foundation of this election.”
